On Assignment Part 2: Colorado vs. Notre Dame

My weirdo editor found out that I was planning to go out west for two weeks of fly fishing for the first two weeks of July. He called me to join him for a drink and talk business. As I have regaled to you in the past, I do not get paid for this writing gig. In fact, my cheap-assed editor usually makes me pay the bar tab. The one time he bought me a drink, he ordered one bottle of Budweiser and two glasses.

I was meeting him at the CC Club in Minneapolis. When I walked in, I found out why he chose this dive. He was playing Tron. I love Tron. I ordered a beer and walked over to him. He was starting the Light Cycle game. I love the Light Cycle game. The three yellow cycles made quick work of him, and we sat down to talk business.

"Sean, I want you to write an article for me that's right up your alley, fly fishing in Colorado. I want to make the web site appeal to a broader spectrum of readers, and I want you to start us off with some outdoor writing."

With my editor, there was always a catch. I was used to getting slapped with it after acceptance of the assignment, so this time I told him to be up front with me.

"Greg, that sounds great. How are you going to fuck me?"

"It's not like that. I've arranged a guide and a place for you to crash."

"Who's my guide?"

"He's a great guy that lives here in town. His name is Mike McMahon. He's a fisherman and a great guy to party with."

I always hate meeting these people that he calls friends. He has a weird taste in people. Folks that he says are alright end up being some of the most dangerous and unpredictable people on earth. One time, while he was introducing me to a guy I can't name in Milwaukee, the dude turned around and proceeded to beat the shit out of a police officer that was just trying to keep the peace at Summerfest.

"What's this guy like?"

"You'll love him. He knows all the good places to fish in Colorado and his parents have a cabin in the mountains. He'll show you a good time."

What could I say? I didn't really know where to fish out there, so a guide sounded great. I knew that I would regret it, but I took the assignment.

"What are you going to pay me?"

Without saying a word, my editor pulled out a ziplock bag full of pills and handed it to me. It was crammed so full of Xanex, Klonopin and Vicodin that I could barley conceal it in my pocket. The best payment he has given me yet.

The only instructions I received was Mike's cell phone number and that I needed to pick him up at the Liquor Mart in Boulder, Colorado on the morning of July 3rd.

This worked out great. I met with some old friends first in Colorado Springs. We went camping and fishing and had a very nice, relaxed time. They even gave me enough pot to last me the remaining 10 days of my trip.

When July 3rd rolled around, I found the Liquor Mart without any problems. I called Mike on his cell phone and he quickly answered. As it turned out, he was already there waiting for me. He told me to walk to the front of the store and look for a big guy with tattoos. He wasn't kidding. As it turned out, Mike was a 350 pounder with spiked blond hair, a goatee, and tattoos all over his massive body. The most prominent one being the Notre Dame Fighting Irish logo on the under side of his right forearm. It was visible and right-side up when he held his huge fist up in the air every time he cursed God.

"Nice to meet you, dude. I'm from Minneapolis, and I work part time at the Dubliner on Snelling Avenue as a bouncer."

"No shit, Mike? A bouncer, really?"

"Hey, you're alright, dude. Let's stock up on canned goods and drive up the hill."

We went into the liquor store, and we each bought two cases of beer. The next day being a holiday, we didn't want to run out.

All he had with him, when we loaded the booze in the truck was a sweatshirt, a small assortment of illegal drugs, and a pistol that fell out of his pocket on to the floor of my vehicle when he sat his massive frame down in the passenger seat.

It was a gorgeous weapon. From the quick glance I got, it looked like a Taurus Model 627, .357 Magnum revolver with a beautiful chrome finish and a black rubber grip.

As I have mentioned before, I have a .357 fetish and I could not get that pistol out of my mind. The road up and out of Boulder to the small mountain town of Nederland goes right up a canyon. It's 15 miles of winding mountain road where your top speed never exceeds 35 miles an hour. This gave me plenty of time to think of that handgun. I wasn't afraid of it or him; I just wanted to shoot it. But here is the tricky part. To most men, handguns are like women. Some guys will share their main squeeze but, but most men don't want you fooling around with their toy.

Mike seemed cool, so I broached the subject when there was a lull in the conversation. "Any chance we might get some shooting in between fishing?"

"Sure thing, dude. I have plenty of extra ammo, and I like shooting at night. The muzzle flash off of this baby lights up the night."

A man after my own heart.

We got to the cabin in one piece after crawling through the hippie commune known as Nederland, Colorado and then up a steep-assed dirt mountain road. The cabin was no palace, but it would suit my needs. I had a bed, an outhouse and an old refrigerator. You know the kind: Big old metal thing with a 100-pound door that keeps the beer at 33 degrees Fahrenheit. I found heaven at 9,000 feet of elevation.

It was Mike's parents' place and they were there. Seamus and Shannon, a great old Irish couple that knew their way around liquor. As Seamus shook my hand, he welcomed me and said, "Ah Sean, tanks for coming all this way to help me install a couple of sliding glass doors."

My fucking editor, here was the catch. I wanted to drink and fish but now, I had to work.

That night, the four of us proceeded to drink two cases of beer and a half liter of Jameson. We then smoked half of my pot stash and dug in to the pill bag. I figured that I'd sleep until noon, but Seamus had other ideas. I heard the coffee grinder at 6:30 a.m. and the construction noise started soon after. Mike and his father were already working when I began consuming coffee and wiped the schmaltz out of my eyes. Seamus was the first one to talk to me.

"Morning, Lollypop! You didn't think that you were going to sleep all day, did you?"

I did want to tell the Mic bastard that I intended to sleep a little longer, but I figured the sooner we finished the job, the sooner I could get back to my vacation.

The job looked daunting. We had to carefully pull off the cedar siding and remove a picture window. Then, frame in the new opening, install and level the door and then do it a second time for the other door. Other than Mike and Seamus bickering all day like a couple of old ladies, the job went pretty well. We were done by three in the afternoon and were drinking gin and tonics while it got dark out to light off the $500 worth of fireworks that Seamus had with him.

Let me just say here that a fireworks display is really cool when you are under the influence of multiple substances. Seamus would light off some skyrockets, and Mike and I would shoot the gun off into a strategically placed dirt mound on the property. If my firearm safety instructor had seen us drunk and firing off a gun at night, he would have had a heart attack. By midnight, Seamus was out of fireworks, Mike was out of ammunition, and I was out of beer.

I was once again riled out of slumber early the next morning for a day's work. If today went smoothly, I could go fishing the next day. I was greeted by Shannon with a travel mug of coffee and a shopping list. "Ah, Sean, we are going to need provisions, and Seamus thinks you're the man for the job," she cooed. "Just drive down to Neaderland and pick us up a few things and hurry back to help the boys." Here was the shopping list...

4 cases of assorted beers. 2 liters of Jameson. I liter of gin. 2 boxes of white wine. Shannon also handed me a hundred dollar bill.

I tried to make my trip last but found myself back at the cabin by 9 a.m. I was greeted by the sight of Mike and Seamus have a shooting match with a couple of nail guns. The targets were each other. They looked like a couple of porcupines with all of the nails sticking out of their flesh. Shannon was busy yelling at them, and I just tried to stay out of range. The last thing I wanted was to get shot in the ass with a nail gun by some big Mic who's ass I was unable to kick.

the Irish anger soon subsided, they pulled the nails out and got back to work with the puncture wounds still bleeding. "Hey, Sean, you gotta let the wound clean itself."

Fuckin' Mics.

Somehow, the day's job was finished by 2:30 p.m., and I was curing my hangover with another Seamus-mixed gin and tonic. Mike and Seamus used their first cocktail to clean their wounds but were soon drinking with me and carrying on like nothing happened.

The next morning, Mike flipped my bed over at 5:30 a.m. and told me to hurry up and get ready, we were going fishing. By 7 a.m., I was waist deep in Lake Brainerd. The lake is halfway between Nederland and Estes Park. It is at 10,300 feet of elevation and fed by a melting glacier. You have to wear your waders because the water temperature is never above 40 degrees. Reaching in to handle a fish was like digging down into the bottom of a cooler for that beer on the bottom. Witch's tit cold.

Mike landed a nice trout after only 5 minutes or so and flipped it into the cooler. "That's called a Colorado release," he said. Then he grabbed himself a beer. "I need breakfast."

For every fish he caught, he had a beer. This went on for about a dozen beers until he tripped on something and landed face first on a rock. The gash on his forehead had to be at least three inches across, putting an end to the day's fishing.

The drive to the hospital in Boulder took over an hour. Big Mike drank six beers on the way claiming that it thickens up Irish blood. By the looks of the blood stain on his shirt and the floor of my truck, he needed to keep drinking.

By the time he was stitched up, I was ready for booze and pills. I got Mike's big ass back to the cabin where Seamus had heard us coming and mixed me a gin and tonic. I love the Irish.

I called it a night early because by my calculation, I had had 9 hours of sleep in the last 72 hours. Well, sure as shit, Mike woke me at 5:30 a.m. again. I do not know how he did it but no matter how much this big fucker drank and injured himself, he was always fine the next morning.

On this day, we fished Boulder Creek. It was a beautiful stream that ran right next to the railroad tracks. An Amtrak train rolled by and some passengers waived to us while we rigged our fly rods in the cool early morning light. The stream was narrow enough to cast across, so I did not put on my waders, I just walked along the shore, casting to every fishy looking target I saw.

I hooked a nice brown trout behind the first boulder I cast to. It turned out to be a good omen for the day. With Mike downstream from me and the roar of moving water drowning out any other sound, I was able to fish all morning without any distractions. I walked back to the truck at noon and found Mike there drinking away. Small drops of blood were oozing out of his stitched up forehead. "That's just extra blood in my alcohol system."

We drove back to the cabin where Mike immediately jumped on to an old motocross style motorcycle. He looked like one of those fat twins on mini bikes from the Guinness Book of World Records from the 1970s.

"Mike, are you sure that's a good idea?"

"Fuck you, I'm going for a ride!"

When he didn't come back for close to an hour, Shannon suggested that since I was the most sober, I should go looking for him. I found him walking on the road with his right arm looking completely mangled and covered in gravel. He told me that he was taking a turn too fast and the bike slid out from under him.

On our way to the hospital in Boulder, we stopped by the cabin to tell Seamus and Shannon where we were going and to load up the cooler for the drive down. I had to open Mike's beers for him because he could not use his mangled arm.

When I dropped him off at the Emergency Room for the second time in as many days, I told him that I was going to park the car and meet him inside. I tore out of there and headed north to Wyoming. I had had enough of this drunken Mic family and figured I'd take my chances.

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